Wonderboy, Chapter 6

Neither his mum’s Ford nor his dad’s Holden station wagon were parked under the veranda. Simon’s flash red bike was missing, too. The only vehicle was his rickety green bike. Jack went inside.

    Even though he had no expectation anyone would be home, he called through all the doors adjoining the living room.

    ‘Dad? Simon? Mum?’ 

    He went to the fridge to fix himself a bowl of Rice Bubbles, and found a note stuck to it with a magnet. It was in his dad’s handwriting.

    Your Mum and I have gone to watch Simon at footy practice.

    Dad

    P.S. Tea’s in the fridge.

    Jack looked inside the fridge to find a TV meal in its foil container. He didn’t feel hungry. Instead, he went to the front veranda and stared up at the hill where Juliet and Mel’s house was half-hidden by trees.

 

    Juliet was working in the garden, a straw hat on her head and big white gloves on her hands. She carried a trowel in her right.

    ‘Jack!’

    ‘I can go,’ he said, quickly.

    Juliet got to her feet, dusting her hands and knees of dirt.

    ‘No, don’t be silly,’ she laughed. ‘Mel’s in the Cubby House.’

    Juliet nodded to a structure on stilts some distance off. Jack knew the structure without having to turn. He’d been near it but never inside. The Cubby House was a corrugated iron room raised up on six treated pine posts, with a balcony at one end. A huge gum tree hugged the whole with its octopus arms. Underneath lay a great log, upon which someone had piled bones: cows, sheep, foxes, snakes, rats; you name it. Jack had always wondered how to get inside. He thought Mel very brave to go in there alone.

    He approached the closest he ever had, and discovered a trapdoor underneath.

    ‘Mel?’

    He called out again, to no avail. Just as he turned to leave, he saw a rope ladder thrown down, nearly making him jump.

    ‘Jack, about time! Come up.’

    Although he’d never climbed one before, he knew from The Six Million Dollar Man it was easier sideways, and got the hang of it quickly enough.

    The trapdoor opened up under a low bench, which Jack then had to crawl out from under. He figured the bench was probably there to stop people falling down the hole. For some reason, Jack thought it was the kind of clever thing his dad would think to do. Even though his mum said he never got much done, when he did fix or make things, he did them extremely well.

    Rising up beside the bench, Jack observed it had a double purpose. Climbing onto the bench would mean you could push your way up through the ceiling hatch and get on the roof, no doubt. Wow! he thought; it really was cleverly designed. Why had he ever been scared of the place? He started scrambling onto the bench, hardly able to wait to check out the view that he knew would overlook the valley and his own house, when Mel called out.

    Jack saw there were two open doorways leading from the room he was in. One led to the empty balcony; taking the other, he stepped into a sparsely furnished room, covered in wax paper with crayon drawings all over it, rather neat. Mel was lying on a quilted doona, listening to something through her earphones. To Jack’s surprise, he realised the place must have electricity.

    He plonked down next to her. She held the big rubber earphones towards him.

    ‘Jack, you’ve got to listen to this. Quick, it’s on the radio.

    Mel leant close to Jack so that they could both listen in.

    The music was a strange dance of flute and oboe, backed by an orchestra, like two birds trying to fly directly upwards, but only succeeding in a majestic hovering.

    Mel smiled at the delight on Jack’s face. ‘I’d love to wake up to a morning as beautiful as that,’ she said.

    Jack frowned. ‘Morning? It’s just music.’

    Mel straightened in horror.

    ‘Just music! Weren’t you listening to Mr Rush?’

    Jack nodded slowly. The music was swelling now, as from the sort of joy he’d never known. Those birds would never quite succeed in their vertical lift, but there was a beauty and choreography in their striving.

    ‘Yes, but how can music be about anything?’ he asked, still a little sceptical, despite the images that Mel’s words, in conjunction with the music, had conjured in his mind’s eye.

    ‘Well, of course it can,’ insisted Mel. ‘Listen.’

    The two leant in close to the one headphone. Even their breaths were mingled. He’d never been so close to a girl before. Her smell was like cut grass. The music died down, only to hint at rising again.

    Mel stared at Jack intently. ‘That’s not your average morning; jumping out of bed, feeling horrible, going off to school tired.’

    ‘What sort of morning is it, then?’ he asked, gazing into her brown eyes.

    ‘Well, it’s early, still early, but it’s pleasant. Listen, that’s the sun coming over the hill, and the sound of birds, not traffic. There! Hear that, the trilling? It’s beautiful. A slow awakening. A day full of promise!’

    A smile of vague understanding spread over Jack’s face. Music had made him see things before but he thought that was always what he’d evoked. But perhaps, just perhaps, the musician could make you see things of their own devising, too. For the first time, he wasn’t afraid for Mel to look so long into his eyes, nor of himself looking into hers. Perhaps there, finally, was that connection he’d always longed for, that friend with whom he could play on equal footing. That… companion with whom to travel in time and space. She was searching him just as thoroughly, and for the first time he really wondered what was going on in another’s head. Juliet’s voice at the manhole rudely interrupted the moment.

    ‘Mel?’

    Mel jumped up, roughly putting both headphones over his ears, laughing at his protestations, and bumbling to the balcony.

    ‘Yes, Mum?’ she called, leaning over the railing.

    The music ended, replaced by the dulcet tones of a male announcer: ‘And that, of course, was the Morning Mood movement of the Peer Gynt Suite by—’

    Mel yelled at Jack to join her. Jack pulled off the headphones and hurriedly looked around for a pen and paper to write on. He spotted the crêpe paper Mel had been drawing on and quickly scribbled down the name of the piece and what he thought was the composer.

    ‘Do you want to ask if Jack would like to stay for tea, honey?’ Juliet’s voice rose up from below.

    ‘He’ll stay, Mum.’

    ‘Think you should ask first?’

    Jack quickly thrust the paper inside his pocket as Mel pirouetted and skipped back into the room.

    ‘Jack, Mum wants to know if you’re staying for tea?’

    It suddenly occurred to Jack that his parents would be home by now, and most likely worried about him.

    ‘Really, I should be getting—’

    Mel cut him off, giving the answer he wanted to give.

    ‘I said yes.’

    He was a little worried but answered with a smile.

 

    Jack had peered through the windows to Juliet and Mel’s house over the years but never entered. That would have meant breaking in, of course. But from what he’d gleaned, though, the place seemed like a shrine. Actually getting beyond the seal and surveying its innards, that impression was strengthened. It was the exact antithesis to his own home. Jean liked everything clean and modern. She hated any kind of mess or clutter. There was an awful amount of clutter in Juliet’s house, though Jack wouldn’t have said it was messy. There were instruments galore, a piano with candlestick holders; you name it. Entering it, finally, made him think of Howard Carter discovering Tutankhamun’s tomb. Just how had Juliet’s house avoided being ransacked? Come to think of it, Daniel had kept a pretty close eye on it.

    He always thought good people would come home to it. Although he didn’t know it was their house, then.

    The place smelt different to home, too. Home smelt clean. Just that; clean. But this home smelt of things, of herbs, of wool, of must, of dust, of flowers and dried eucalypt leaves, and expensive, pungent perfumes. It was a testament to Juliet’s industry that the place had come so alive during such short reoccupation, as if water had been thrown on a seed, and sunlight let in to shape it upwards.

    ‘I rung your folks to let them know you’ll be late,’ she told Jack, as she put on a record. ‘But they weren’t home.’ 

    Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun brought the dining room to life with its strange nostalgia, rich with sensuality and finesse. Jack never thought the flute sounded so intoxicating—a far cry from the ubiquitous squeaking recorders at school.

    Tantalising aromas emanating from the kitchen soon overtook the unfamiliar smells of the house. Jack and Mel set the table, and Jack was given the seat at the head. With a little flourish, Juliet placed a meal of Coq au Vin in front of their visitor. Jack looked at it queerly. Mel glanced at her mum in concern. The taste was different to the plain meat-and-three-veg he was used to,but he savoured its richness and thick, syrupy texture. He smiled at the others and they smiled in turn as Juliet sat down, relieved.

    They ate by candlelight, something Daniel and Jean only did when there was a power blackout. Juliet, her beautiful face lit with the flickering, guttering light, finished off a nearly empty bottle of Babycham while he and Mel drank orange juice, and Juliet talked about how she would barely fit into the Cubby House now. Once it had seemed so big to her. Daniel had done a splendid job, though. Ah, thought Jack, he was right! It was Daniel’s handiwork.

    Juliet said the Cubby House was the opposite of the TARDIS, smaller on the inside than it ought to be. Now, it left her feeling like Alice from Lewis Carroll, a big kid in a world grown suddenly tiny; constricting.

    Black Forest gateau was dessert—again, a far richer, refreshing and moist sponge cake than the plain ones Jean would sometimes bake.

    When dessert was eaten and the three had washed up, they retired to the couches, already occupied with abundant pillows and throws. Jack was feeling deliriously tired but in a dreamy, pleasant fashion.

    Juliet suddenly changed tone, and looked at Jack strangely as if trying to find another face in his, the shadow of an influence, or impression left from the mould.

    She took a sip of her tumbler of Tokay, the Babycham drunk and left to roll under the fringed couch.   

    ‘Jack, Mel tells me you’re quite the artist.’

    He threw a glance at Mel, embarrassed. Not many people seemed to like that he drew. Mel nodded it was okay.

    Juliet folded her legs under her on the couch, and said in a knowing tone, ‘Who do you inherit that talent from?’

    ‘Dad’s a painter.’

    Juliet was obviously interested, and oddly relieved. ‘Oh good, I’m glad he kept at it. Landscapes… portraits?’

    Jack was confused.

    ‘Houses,’ he mumbled.

    Juliet leant over to place her empty tumbler on the coffee table but something stopped her dead. There was a slightly awkward pause. Mel took the tumbler and lowered it the five centimetres to the table before rolling her eyes at her mum. Juliet seemed pained. Mel broke the silence.

    ‘Mum, today Mr Rush said his favourite piece was Polovtsian Dances. Have we got that?’

    ‘I’m so glad you like Mr Rush,’ said Juliet, unexpectedly serious.

    Mel matched her intensity. ‘Why?’

    Juliet animated back to life, getting off the couch.

    ‘Have we got Polovtsian Dances indeed! We should do! That’s where we met.’

    Juliet thumbed her extensive collection of records.

    ‘Polovtsian Dances is from the opera Prince Igor. I once performed it in Moscow, my nod to glasnost…’

    Jack looked perplexed. Juliet noticed and reached for a photograph on the piano. She handed it to him. It showed the oddest structure, like something from Disney, all onion spires in multiple colours.

    ‘Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square, Moscow,’ she told him.

    Juliet set down the needle and the tune came to life.

    Prefaced by coiling woodwind, it soon evolved into a scintillating cavalcade of notes, a vigorous tumbling acrobatic dance. Again, like the Debussy piece, it relied on woodwind, which traced an arching, repetitive, melodic contour before breaking into a terrifically clamorous cacophony of pure… well… noise. 

    Mel, dancing in a freeform manner, grabbed Jack. He joined in, tentatively, though he didn’t really know how.  

    Also on her feet, Juliet hummed along to the music. Pirouetting ever faster, suddenly she crashed into the record player. Her hands flew up to her face and she closed her eyes, rocking slightly and wincing in pain. Mel let go of Jack and lifted up the record arm.

    ‘Are you all right, Mum?’

    ‘I’m dizzy. Very dizzy.’

    Jack looked at Mel worriedly.